I don't know about you, but when I'm scared, I express it by getting irrationally incensed over completely insignificant matters and heavily over-salting everything I say.
Like on Wednesday, when I got an MRI, as part of a voluntary research study that I signed up for to get $350 and free parking.
Ugh.
So first of all, they made me completely disrobe into a johnny and these offensive drawstring pants with a giant opening in the front... "unisex scrubs." Suffice it to say my gender identity was grotesquely underrepresented.
Awesome.
Next, a half-asleep, broken out zombie tried to make me wear an eye mask. She called herself a "research assistant." Of course, I turned it down. "You're going to want this," she told me.
"I prefer to see everything,"
I pursed my lips as I yanked my unisex scrubs back up to my armpits as she handed me off to the radiologist.
"All right, have a seat here. Lay on your back. Are you claustrophobic or feeling afraid at all?"
Afraid. Ha. Do you know what I've seen? I've faced death.
"No, I'm not afraid. But I do have PTSD, so please don't touch me without telling me first."
That's right. PTSD. Like a badass.
He commenced to strap some sort of highly scientific arch to my midsection, which also happened to restrain my arms to my sides. I'm pretty sure the restraining effect was just a coincidence. After all, this is science.
"What time did they tell you to come?" he asked me.
"7."
"Oh my... they should have told you to come at 6:30. You were late."
"Yes, I was."
I may have been a few minutes off schedule, but badasses have their blind spots too.
In other news, it didn't dawn on me until writing this blog entry that he waited until my arms were strapped down to say that.
"Okay, here you go!"
I levitated slowly, then shot backwards into a coffin.
If you have never had an MRI before, here is a way to experience it at home. Please proceed at your own risk; I take no liability:
1. Obtain a pickax, 2 friends, and a rope.
2. Use the pickax to remove the cover of a manhole.
3. Have one friend tie the rope to your midsection, securing your arms by your side.
4. Tell him to firmly grasp the rope, leaving an amount of slack equivalent to your height, and forcefully push you headfirst down the manhole. Don't wear an eyemask.
5. Instruct your other friend to intermittently strike the pavement circumventing the manhole with the pickax for about 45 minutes. If you say anything, make sure they don't reply.
I wish someone had warned me to close my eyes before I got put in there, and keep them closed the entire time. They really ought to give you a blindfold or something.
I actually know this lady who chooses to be blind. I'm not joking you. All she needs is a 15 minute cataract surgery, but she won't go in for it. She always says it was the doctor who made her blind, and she has $7000 coming to her for it. What's crazy though is that she has completely compensated for it. Once, I lost my car at Market Basket, and she found it. She memorized the number of paces from the exit and was like, "Okay, we have to take 31 steps that way. Remember we came in by the cafe?" She really did find my car. I swear as surely as my own life. I was so stunned, I was practically ready to hand her the keys and let her drive home. She actually still has an active driver's license, in fact. I guess they just haven't noticed or something.
Last week, a bleary coward lit her on fire with a lighter. I've watched the camera footage a hundred times, and I'm pretty sure it was an accident. She handed him a lighter, and he caliginously turned it all the way up-- presumably to light a crack pipe, but the footage is foggy. He then tried to help her light her cigarette with it, and her hair went up in flames. But instead of helping her put it out, he ran away like he didn't see anything.
I digress, but while I'm at it, I also would like to shout out to the good for nothing son of a gun who went Thomas a Kempis on me and left scratch marks all over the inside of the MRI tube. Five bucks says it was the same guy who strapped me in. Since I'm not sure his name, we can just call him Gabriel. Or Michael. Or maybe Remiel. Something along those lines.
Or maybe I'll call him Malachi. Because death isn't something you only face once.
And for all the badassery I carried in with me that morning, there is nothing strong about being dead. And as I lie there, bra-less, restrained, immobile, and forgotten about, I remembered what I was.
I was dead.
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
"Are you okay, Stephanie? Are you anxious?"
I actually wasn't. Let me tell you, I'd be a good woman if it was someone there to shoot me every minute of my life.
But that's another story.
He knows, he loves, he cares.
Nothing this truth can dim.
He leaves the very best to all
Who leave it all to him.
Like on Wednesday, when I got an MRI, as part of a voluntary research study that I signed up for to get $350 and free parking.
Ugh.
So first of all, they made me completely disrobe into a johnny and these offensive drawstring pants with a giant opening in the front... "unisex scrubs." Suffice it to say my gender identity was grotesquely underrepresented.
Awesome.
Next, a half-asleep, broken out zombie tried to make me wear an eye mask. She called herself a "research assistant." Of course, I turned it down. "You're going to want this," she told me.
"I prefer to see everything,"
I pursed my lips as I yanked my unisex scrubs back up to my armpits as she handed me off to the radiologist.
"All right, have a seat here. Lay on your back. Are you claustrophobic or feeling afraid at all?"
Afraid. Ha. Do you know what I've seen? I've faced death.
"No, I'm not afraid. But I do have PTSD, so please don't touch me without telling me first."
That's right. PTSD. Like a badass.
He commenced to strap some sort of highly scientific arch to my midsection, which also happened to restrain my arms to my sides. I'm pretty sure the restraining effect was just a coincidence. After all, this is science.
"What time did they tell you to come?" he asked me.
"7."
"Oh my... they should have told you to come at 6:30. You were late."
"Yes, I was."
I may have been a few minutes off schedule, but badasses have their blind spots too.
In other news, it didn't dawn on me until writing this blog entry that he waited until my arms were strapped down to say that.
"Okay, here you go!"
I levitated slowly, then shot backwards into a coffin.
If you have never had an MRI before, here is a way to experience it at home. Please proceed at your own risk; I take no liability:
1. Obtain a pickax, 2 friends, and a rope.
2. Use the pickax to remove the cover of a manhole.
3. Have one friend tie the rope to your midsection, securing your arms by your side.
4. Tell him to firmly grasp the rope, leaving an amount of slack equivalent to your height, and forcefully push you headfirst down the manhole. Don't wear an eyemask.
5. Instruct your other friend to intermittently strike the pavement circumventing the manhole with the pickax for about 45 minutes. If you say anything, make sure they don't reply.
I wish someone had warned me to close my eyes before I got put in there, and keep them closed the entire time. They really ought to give you a blindfold or something.
I actually know this lady who chooses to be blind. I'm not joking you. All she needs is a 15 minute cataract surgery, but she won't go in for it. She always says it was the doctor who made her blind, and she has $7000 coming to her for it. What's crazy though is that she has completely compensated for it. Once, I lost my car at Market Basket, and she found it. She memorized the number of paces from the exit and was like, "Okay, we have to take 31 steps that way. Remember we came in by the cafe?" She really did find my car. I swear as surely as my own life. I was so stunned, I was practically ready to hand her the keys and let her drive home. She actually still has an active driver's license, in fact. I guess they just haven't noticed or something.
Last week, a bleary coward lit her on fire with a lighter. I've watched the camera footage a hundred times, and I'm pretty sure it was an accident. She handed him a lighter, and he caliginously turned it all the way up-- presumably to light a crack pipe, but the footage is foggy. He then tried to help her light her cigarette with it, and her hair went up in flames. But instead of helping her put it out, he ran away like he didn't see anything.
I digress, but while I'm at it, I also would like to shout out to the good for nothing son of a gun who went Thomas a Kempis on me and left scratch marks all over the inside of the MRI tube. Five bucks says it was the same guy who strapped me in. Since I'm not sure his name, we can just call him Gabriel. Or Michael. Or maybe Remiel. Something along those lines.
Or maybe I'll call him Malachi. Because death isn't something you only face once.
And for all the badassery I carried in with me that morning, there is nothing strong about being dead. And as I lie there, bra-less, restrained, immobile, and forgotten about, I remembered what I was.
I was dead.
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 4 But[c] God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
"Are you okay, Stephanie? Are you anxious?"
I actually wasn't. Let me tell you, I'd be a good woman if it was someone there to shoot me every minute of my life.
But that's another story.
He knows, he loves, he cares.
Nothing this truth can dim.
He leaves the very best to all
Who leave it all to him.